About The Author

After an initially high-flying academic career, this particular David Mitchell didn’t make it into orbit but has been gently returning to earth ever since. Having failed to thrive in university research and town and country planning he found himself founding Scarthin Books of Cromford, Derbyshire; one of Britain’s leading bookshops and a small regional publishing house. Lattice Labyrinths, a byproduct of his Ph.D (disused), have been bothering him throughout his retail career, but he has at last managed to resume work on the subject, as a sort of independent POST-DOC, one of the world’s most annuated.

I’d like to thank, in particular:

Mike Susko for persistently mocking and prodding me into getting this work off my chest and for showing me Adobe Illustrator

John Wykes for painstakingly adding red marks and comments to decapages of dense prose over a period of more than two years – John has profoundly improved clarity of thought as well as of expression – remaining faults are purely my own

Kathy Mitchell for putting up with four years of much reduced input into every other aspect of family life

Anthony Furness for the inspiration of his beautiful work on Polyhedrons and for pointing out the power of control CF

Professor G.C.Shephard for his critical annotation of an early draft of my work and for sending me a copy of Tilings and Patterns, an Introduction

Lynn Brandon at Springer UK for her professional assistance to this aspiring author and for passing on helpful referees’ reports (anonymous)

David Booker, Guy and Wendy Cooper and other staff at Scarthin Books for glady doing without me during the present semi-sabbatical – or is it semi-retirement?